Police suspect that rock throwing was the cause of the car accident that
killed Hillel Palmer, 25, and his one-year-old son Jonathan on Friday,
Army Radio reported on Sunday.
The car turned over on Route 60
in the West Bank, between Kiryat Arba
and Karmei Tzur. Soldiers who were at the scene claimed
that they did not witness rocks being thrown toward the road, but at a
court hearing the police representative said that there was reasonable
suspicion that the car veered off the road due to a rock shattering the
windshield.
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Man, baby killed when car overturns near Kiryat Arba
The
police said that the front window was shattered, and a large rock was
found inside the car with Palmer's blood on it. People close to the
victims claimed that the police quickly determined it as a car accident
in order not to inflame the region.
"So far initial external examinations of the deceased have raised suspicions that he was probably hit by some sort of object thrown by a passing car," Judea and Samaria Police said, adding that nothing had been proven.
The family of Palmer reached
an agreement with the state on Sunday to have blood samples taken from
the bodies of Palmer and his infant son Yehonatan.
The agreement
came after the State Attorney's Office petitioned the High Court of
Justice after Palmer's family refused the state permission to conduct an
autopsy on the bodies, to determine the cause of death.
A police representative said over the past month in Hebron, 18 cases of
stone throwing at Israeli vehicles from cars were reported, according to Israel Radio.
An
initial Traffic Police investigation found that the Subaru was
traveling northbound at apparent high speed, and overturned
into a ditch, striking a stone wall. The vehicle flipped in the air twice before falling into the roadside ditch.
Yaakov Lappin , Joanna Paraszczuk and Ben Hartman contributed to this report.